The film, which depicts the pair attempting to move a piano up a long flight of steps, won the first Academy Award for Best Live Action Short (Comedy) in 1932.

Amidst their arduous efforts, they inadvertently cause the instrument to descend the stairs multiple times, resulting in a series of mishaps and encounters with various individuals, including a nursemaid, a cop, and the imposing Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen.

Uncredited cast The steps, 133 with multiple landings,[7] which are the focal point of The Music Box, still exist in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, near the Laurel and Hardy Park.

The steps are also used, for a gag similar to Hats Off and The Music Box, in Ice Cold Cocos (1926), a Billy Bevan comedy short directed by Del Lord.

After previewing The Music Box in late February that year, the New York trade paper The Film Daily assured theater owners that the comedy "is up to the Laurel-Hardy standard, and should score easily.

"[13] Motion Picture Herald, after previewing the film in March, described it as "great fun" and noted, "Unusually long for a comedy [short], it is well worth the extra length.

"[14] The Chicago-based movie magazine Motion Picture is even more enthusiastic about the comedy in its June 1932 issue:[Laurel and Hardy's] latest "short" lasts thirty minutes.

Variety, the entertainment industry's leading paper in 1932, did not publish its review of The Music Box until November 22, over seven months after MGM officially released the short to theaters.